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Californians are no longer
mellow, and New Yorkers are suddenly a little too sluggish for my taste.
The St. More Ritz

One thing that did work pretty well in New York this week was Priceline, which Zapman used to book a room in midtown. With Priceline, you pick a part of town, and they pick the hotel if they can find a room in your price range.

I ended up with a fifth floor room at the St. Moritz on the Park. The room was pretty minimal and the window opened onto a very gray airshaft. One morning, the elevators only went up. But, hey, I'm not complaining. I got it for $85. In fact, I thought it was so adequate that I asked the hotel to give me another night.

"Sorry," said the deskman. "You booked that through Priceline
pcln
The best rate I can give you is $159."

So I called Priceline to see if they could set me up again.

"Sorry," the Priceline service rep said. "We can't book you into a specific hotel because then we'd be a travel agent. But you can make another reservation for midtown."

So I gave up and asked Priceline to find me another room for $85 in midtown, even if it was a cardboard box near the Queens Midtown Tunnel. But as fate would have it, I again drew the St. More Ritz. I even got to hang onto my little bit of paradise on the fifth floor.

Of course, it took me an hour to explain it all to the deskman. But that's only about 8 1/2 minutes in Internet time, so I figured it was worth it.

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